


(The Water Under It)

by Novaviis



Series: Watercolour [36]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 11:38:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20705375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Novaviis/pseuds/Novaviis
Summary: The night on Westward Bridge, and the aftermath, from Wally's perspective.The man on the other end cleared his throat. “Mr. West, this is Captain Chatterjee calling from the GCPD regarding Officer Grayson. You’re listed as his first emergency contact.”Wally was suddenly very aware of how empty the apartment it was. How still and quiet it sat in the dark, the colours all saturated to soft greys and blues. The snow outside was falling so slowly past the window it almost looked like it was standing still. Wally had always dreaded getting a call like this. From the moment Dick had told him, a lifetime ago, that he was applying to the Police Academy, Wally had imagined what it would be like to get a call from the Gotham City Police Department. They never called with good news - but they didn’t call for deaths. They didn’t call for deaths, they showed up on your door step in dress uniform with their hats in their hands and a nuclear bomb on their tongues.“... tried calling your land line first, left a voice mail... hello? Mr. West?”





	(The Water Under It)

**Author's Note:**

> ** [Quick Note: This story is a direct parallel/sequel to "The Bridge". If you're new to the Watercolour series, I suggest you read that first.]**
> 
> Hello! It’s been a while. I mean, a long while. I haven’t updated this series since June. It feels like I just turned around and suddenly it was September. The summer got away from me. I’ve realized lately just how much I missed writing for Watercolour. This break has been good for me, I feel that I needed the space from writing to work on other things. At the same time though, I’ve found it really hard to get back into the groove of writing. Almost like the pressure of being gone for so long demanded a lot more from me than I could give. I had it in my head that I’ve have to come back with something big and impressive to make up for my absence. The more pressure I put on myself, the longer I stayed away. 
> 
> So, I’m writing this instead. It’s an ending scene from The Bridge that I had in my head but decided not to write originally, because I didn’t want to take away from the focus of that story. It didn’t feel right adding this onto that story as just another chapter, or just pasting it at the end, so I’m writing it on its own. Just something soft and comforting to ease myself back in. 
> 
> |_Best enjoyed listening to [lofi radio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPLLhlX0YXM) and a [winter soundscape](https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/winterSoundscapeGenerator.php)._

Wally hadn’t even taken off his jacket when his phone vibrated from his back pocket. It seemed like days ago when he thought about it. He remembered walking into their apartment and flicking on the switch to a lamp in the living room, not quite ready for the bright, full florescence of the overheads just yet. The apartment was warm and dry, with the snow still falling down from the heavy night sky above Bludhaven. The lamp had cast an amber glow through the room, reflecting in the large windows overlooking the city. Wally had toed out of his boots at the front door, leaving them to drip melting snow and street salt onto the little rubber mat. He’d dropped his keys in the bowl by the door, slipped his ‘work’ bag off his shoulder, the glove of his crimson Flash suit spilling carelessly onto the floor.

It had been a quiet patrol in Central and Keystone that afternoon. A robbery, an arms deal, and a few hours spent gathering evidence for an older case. All relatively minor, not that Wally was complaining. No one liked jumping right back into dealing with Super Villain-ry straight after the holidays.

In any case, it’d been a pretty normal evening. The fact that he probably wouldn’t see Dick until morning was a bit of a bummer, but he was more than used to his midnight shifts. Wally had already settled on the idea of making a quick dinner and watching movies until he was tired enough to sleep. Dick would crawl into bed at some hour of the dark morning, and Wally would roll over half asleep to accommodate him, and they’d have some time to have breakfast together before Wally had to leave for work. It was, relatively speaking, normal.

So, Wally had turned toward the kitchen. Hand out toward the refrigerator door, he hadn’t even wrapped his fingers around the handle before he felt the buzz in his coat pocket. In all honesty, he’d nearly ignored it, but when he buzz sounded again, picking up a rhythm to indicate an incoming call, he changed course. Slipping his phone out of his pocket, he leaned back against the island counter and accepted the call. “Hello,” he greeted casually. He hadn’t even looking at the I.D.

“Is this Wallace West’s phone number?” a deep male voice on the other end of the line asked. It was almost a little difficult to hear him. The white noise of voices and what sounded like rushing water in the background gave the impression that the man was outside somewhere.

Wally frowned. He couldn’t place the voice as anyone he knew, either. With some small about of dread, he thought for a moment that he’d accidentally answered a call from a telemarketer. He was already thinking of an excuse to get out of whatever they were trying to sell without being a total ass when he realized that telemarketers rarely worked outdoors. Not his finest moment. “Uh- yeah, speaking,” he stammered.

The man on the other end cleared his throat. “Mr. West, this is Captain Chatterjee calling from the GCPD regarding Officer Grayson. You’re listed as his first emergency contact.”

Wally was suddenly very aware of how empty the apartment it was. How still and quiet it sat in the dark, the colours all saturated to soft greys and blues. The snow outside was falling so slowly past the window it almost looked like it was standing still. Wally had always dreaded getting a call like this. From the moment Dick had told him, a lifetime ago, that he was applying to the Police Academy, Wally had imagined what it would be like to get a call from the Gotham City Police Department. They never called with good news - but they didn’t call for deaths. They didn’t call for deaths, they showed up on your door step in dress uniform with their hats in their hands and a nuclear bomb on their tongues.

“... tried calling your land line first, left a voice mail... hello? Mr. West?”

Wally shook his head, pushing his hand back through his hair as he forced himself to focus. “Yeah, I’m here. Sorry, the connection... it cut out for a minute. What’s gong on? Is Dick alright?” he asked, willing his voice not to tremble. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the blinking red light of the answering machine on the end table in the living room.

Captain Chatterjee cleared his throat. “Apologies, Mr. West. I should have lead with that. Officer Grayson is safe and in stable condition.”

Exhaling a measured breath through his nose, Wally tried to keep from snapping. “Okay, in stable condition from what exactly?”

“About an hour ago, dispatch received a call from Officer Grayson reporting that he was dealing with a potential suicide attempt on Westward Bridge,” Chatterjee began. The factual tone of his voice suggested he might be reading this straight from a written report like a script. “He spent about an hour speaking to the girl over the rails before witnesses say it appeared Grayson managed to talk her down. As they were attempting to get over the rails however, the girl slipped. Officer Grayson jumped after her.”

“Shit...” Wally breathed, scrubbing his hand over his jaw. It was the middle of January. It was _cold_.

Chatterjee continued. “Water Rescue picked them up within a minute of the fall. They are both currently being treated by the medical team on the shore. The car park underneath the bridge on the southern side, in Gotham.”

Dropping his hand from his face, Wally willed himself to move, stumbling back into his still-freezing boots at the front door. “And he’s-”

“A little banged up from the fall, and we suspect there may be some mild hypothermia, but there was no other serious damage. You’re his roommate I assume, Mr. West? Not one of his adopted siblings?”

Wally thinly veiled his annoyance. “Fiancé,” he corrected.

Chatterjee, to his credit, didn’t stumble over that revelation - not too much, anyway. “Ah yes, his fiancé, my apologies. In any case, Grayson is a very brave and very lucky man. Not many people survive a fall like that.”

If only he knew the things Dick had survived in his life, Wally thought in passing. “He is,” he agreed. “I’m on my way there.”

Nearly tripping a few times in the narrow hallway in his haste to get his shoes on, Wally ended the call and shoved his phone in his pocket. Hand on the door knob, he was seconds away from yanking it open and running out of the building, already feeling the energy of the Speedforce crackling through his body, when reason finally caught up to him. If he ran there, it’d take maybe a few seconds, a minute tops if he wasn’t pulling top speed. He’d only just hung up the phone. Everything in his body was _screaming_ at him to get to his partner as fast as possible, but he knew in that moment that he couldn’t. This was one of the things he hated about civilian life. If they were suited up, if Nightwing had been the one to fall in the water, Flash could be there in a nanosecond. Wally West, however, was a normal man. A normal man who would have to drive his normal car. Practically growling in frustration under his breath, Wally grabbed his car keys out of the bowl on the end table, and after sparing a second thought, yanked Dick’s winter coat down from the rack. Tucking the coat under his arm, Wally ran out of the apartment, jammed the key into the deadbolt to lock the door, and ran down the stairwell to the garage.

The roads were absolute shit that night with all the snow, and it’d be a lie to say Wally didn’t fishtail a few times when he tried to guide the car around the street corners. The city was practically deserted at this hour, hanging in suspension between late night and early morning. Wally drove through the labyrinth of sky scrapers, dotted with spare lights that could have been mistaken for stars were it not for the _lovely_ neo-gothic architecture. He hadn’t even turned the radio on. All he could hear was the ambient rumble of the engine, the tires creaking over the fresh snow, and his own heart beat pounding in his chest. He knew that if he pushed the car any faster, he’d end up in the back of an ambulance that night too, and it was the last thing they needed, but _fuck_ it was so slow. The minutes ticked by at an agonizing pace. By the time he turned the last corner, and the top of Westward Bridge came into view, his knuckles were white as they gripped the steering wheel. The bridge rose up higher and higher over him, until finally the fork in the road that would either lead over to Gotham or to the shore revealed a spattering of flashing red and blue lights. The light reflected off the rushing water and the surrounding buildings. Already, there was a small crowd of folks huddled in winter coats with cameras and phones trying to get shot past the police barrier. Wally parked his car on the far, secluded side of the lot, and jogged across the snow covered concrete to the crowd.

“Excuse me, I need to - hey, I need to get through,” Wally grunted as he forced himself through the crowd of reporters, ignoring their arguments that _they got there first_ until he’d managed to get to the barrier. A few Officers were standing on the other side, trying to block their view and prevent any of the reporters from bothering the victims and emergency crew on the other side.

One of the nearest Officers held up his hand to Wally, one hand on his belt but otherwise sternly calm. “Sir, you can’t-”

“Officer Grayson,” Wally blurted out before his mind could catch up to his mouth. Forcing himself to regain his composure, he recovered and continued. “I’m here for Officer Grayson- for Dick. I’m-”

“I’m sorry sir,” the Officer shook his head. “This is a closed scene, we aren’t allowing-”

“You’re Wally?” Another Officer spoke up from beside him. She was a little shorter than her partner, and though her face was familiar, Wally didn’t recognize either of them that well. He figured they were from a different Precinct, but she may have worked a case with Dick before. His mind was still racing too fast to keep up with these errant thoughts.

Wally realized after a moment that he’d taken too long to respond. “Yeah, I’m - yeah, that’s me.”

“He’s a friend of Grayson’s, they’re expecting him,” she told the other Officer.

Wally didn’t have the time or frame of mind to correct her before the other Officer was shifting the barrier aside. “He’s right over there,” he said, pointing to one of the two ambulances parked next to the river.

He’d gone from everything moving too slow, to too fast. Now Wally was the one having trouble keeping up, and he found himself a little out of sorts with it all. Just barely managing a speechless nod, Wally walked through the barrier. A wave of complaints sounded from the photographers as the barrier was closed behind him, but Wally didn’t pay it any mind. His eyes scanned the lot. It was a mess of police cars and people in Uniform, foot prints tracking endless patterns through the snow faster than the gentle winter storm could cover up. What looked like a small family sat huddle in the back of one ambulance, their voices pitched and upset. There was too much going on too much red and blue and florescent light contrasting the dark rushing water of the river and the heavy night sky. Wally’s gaze shifted to the other ambulance, where finally he found Dick, sitting on the back rim with a thick blanket draped over his shoulders. Their eyes met. Dick smiled back at him, exhausted and almost a little embarrassed, as he raised his hand in a short wave.

Behind him, behind the ambuance and the parking lot and the chunks of solid ice building up at the shore of the river, Westward Bridge stood looming it all. The lights of the suspension lines and the apex were faded by the haze of snowfall. Wally could hardly see Gotham on the other side of the river, the city just a blur of light and dark, nightmarish shapes. In the centre of the bridge, there were still a few police cars with their lights on, ushering curious cars and pedestrians on.

_There was so much space_, Wally thought. He couldn’t help but look up from the point of the red and blue lights, the distant twinkling spec of them, down to their reflection in the rushing water below. There was a drop of 150 feet. He imagined, just for a moment, Dick falling through all that open space. He must have felt like he was falling for an hour and a second all at once. Wally followed that empty air down, until his view of the river was obstructed by the ambulance.

Wally wasn’t sure if it was the reflection of the snow, and honestly he’d rather believe that, but Dick’s skin was pale and colourless. He was dressed in grey sweats that were just a little too big for him, holding the blanket tight around his body. Even from that distance, Wally could see him shivering. His hair was still glossy from the water, flat over his head and sticking in strands to his face. His eyes looked a little hollow, but _still_ he was smiling. Tired, and a little haunted, but smiling.

Wally ran to him.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Safe to say, Wally hadn’t expected that he’d end up in a desolate little cafe by the end of the night. Not that it was a bad thing, of course. He couldn’t really say no to Dick tonight. When his partner had told him he wanted to bring the girl and her family some hot chocolate, the desire to get Dick home had been overshadowed entirely by how much he adored him. It was such a small thing to do, in the grand scheme of what Dick had already done that night, but it was just so ineffably_ Dick Grayson_ that Wally had found his chest swelling with love and pride for him. It didn’t matter that he was tired. He could only image how drained Dick was already. As soon as Dick was cleared to leave, Wally guided him out the far side of the lot where the reporters couldn’t see them behind a trail of trees along the fence-lined river side. One hand on his back, he lead him out to the car, opened the passenger door for him, and slid in the opposite side. As the engine revved to life, the heat turned on high, and Dick sighed heavily as he sank into his seat. Wally reached across the centre console and took Dick’s hand, lacing their fingers together. Dick squeezed, laying his other hand on top of Wally’s - his hands were still so cold. Wordlessly, Wally lifted Dick’s hands to his lips and kissed across his knuckles, before letting go to put the car in drive.

The cafe was five minutes down the road. It was a quiet little spot nestled between a laundromat and an Indonesian grocery store. As the only 24/hr establishment on this side of the city, there were a few other people in the cafe when Dick and Wally arrived - two young women sharing a pair of earbuds, working over their laptops and text books at one table, a man sleeping in the corner booth. Dick put in an order for five hot chocolates and Wally paid, the two of them finding a spot by the window to wait.

They lapsed into silence. Dick was staring out the window in a bit of a daze. He had his arms folded on the table, his upper body hunched over on himself like he was still trying to retain body heat. A bit of colour had returned to his face at least, the tip of his nose and his cheeks faintly dusted with a raw red.

Wally reached out, laying his hand over his partner’s arm. “Babe,” he murmured, feeling Dick tense slightly under his hand at the intruding sound. “Gotta ask. Hot chocolate?”

Dick let out a shallow laugh, ducking his head for a moment before looking back up at Wally. “I promised Riley.”

“Riley... she’s the girl who-”

“Yeah,” Dick nodded.

“And you promised to get her hot chocolate...” Wally prompted him to continue. He still didn’t know what had happened.What he’d been told were the bare essentials - Dick was trying to talk a young girl down from jumping off the bridge, and they went over. Everything else, even her name, was a complete mystery. The last thing he wanted was to push Dick, but... well, he could see so clearly how much this was affecting him. The two of them were masked heroes, going out and risking their lives every other night to save people. They’d had worse close calls than this, been through hell and back. Wally could see clearly as anything that something about this was different.

Dick pursed his lips, nodding again. For a long moment, Wally thought he was going to just leave it at that. In that case, Wally wouldn’t pry. However, finally, Dick seemed to gather his thoughts enough to speak. “I was on patrol, just grabbing some coffee, and a woman told me about Riley. She saw her on the bridge, over the rails, looking like she was going to jump. So, I called it in and went to deal with it. Riley wouldn’t budge at first - she was terrified, hysterical almost. I tried talking to her, distract her enough that I could get close but she was too defensive, wouldn’t cooperate. After a minute, I uh...” Dick choked. If his eyes were wet, he blinked it away too quickly for Wally to see - but he noticed. He took in a breath that rattled like stale water through his chest. His emotions were beginning to catch up with him. Delayed reaction. Newton’s cradle. Wally smoothed his thumb over Dick’s wrist, through the soft knit cuff of his coat. Dick inhaled, smoother this time. “I saw the rainbow band on her wrist.”

That statement alone carried enough weight to cave Wally’s chest in. That one little statement, and he knew. He understood. His shoulders visibly deflated, expression falling. Dick looked up at him to gaze his reaction. When their eyes met across the table, a hundred statistics flashed between them. “Dick...” Wally breathed.

Dick shook his head before Wally could continue. “Don’t say you’re sorry,” he gently chided. “It gave me something to connect with her. She wouldn’t talk to me, she wouldn’t listen to anything else, so I just... did the first thing that came to mind,” Dick smiled, eyes glistening as he gazed back at Wally. “I just started talking about _you_.”

And again, that rush and flow hit Wally again, the world seeming to come to a stop when earlier everything had been too fast. Dick had been under mortal stress, trying to talk a girl down from ending her life, searching for something comforting to say to her... and he chose to talk about _him_. Wally loved Dick more than anything in this universe, and he knew that Dick felt the same. Never doubted that, not even in their roughest moments. And _still_ these things managed to catch Wally completely off guard. He didn’t even notice when the barista at the counter called out their order, and Dick gave his hand a squeeze before getting up to take the tray. Wally had to force himself back to reality, letting time catch up, just to get out of his chair and walk out to the car.

On the sidewalk, Wally took the tray from Dick, and carried it to where he’d parked just up the street. There, however, he set the tray of steaming cups on the roof of the car, and took Dick’s hand before he could round the vehicle to the other side. “Hey,” he murmured, and as Dick turned to face him, he raised his hand to his cheek and kissed him under the cone of the street lamp. Snowfall drifted through the beam of light before disappearing into the dark beyond. The city was still and quiet. Wally cupped Dick’s face in both his hands, kissing him smoothly, like the world behind their halo of light just faded away in a haze of snow. Dick returned it slowly, hands coming up to slip under the unzipped front of Wally’s coat. His fingers were still cold, curling into the sweater Wally wore underneath to regain some feeling.

It was just a moment to stop. To pause and breath. There was a time they’d never have kissed in the street like this, open and vulnerable. There were times when they did, and were met with hostility. Right now, none of that mattered. They kissed in the street, and the world was silent. Everything was hazy, and the only thing in focus was the two of them. When Wally pulled away, he pushed the hair back from Dick’s face and kissed his forehead, before taking the tray and opening the car door. With the radio casting white noise and muted beats through the car, they drove back to the lot at the river.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

_“Mr. West, this is Captain Chatterjee calling from the GCPD. There’s been an incident involving Officer Grayson. At about quarter after one, he reported a potential suici-”_

Dick reached over Wally’s shoulder and turned off the answering machine before Wally could listen to the whole message. The red blinking light shut off. Wally had left the lamp on when he’d run out of the apartment. Stretching his shoulders back with a sigh of satisfaction at the light pop, he turned and wrapped his arms around Dick.

They’d only just gotten back home. After spending another half hour at the lot, they’d managed to convince Riley to go with the paramedics to the hospital. It wasn’t easy, and even after they’d first sat down with her and her family, she nearly backed out a few times. In the end, however, they were able to get her to feel comfortable enough to go. Only after Dick was sure that she was in that vehicle and headed somewhere safe, did the two of them finally head home. It was verging on four in the morning at that point. They were tired.

“Alright,” Wally sighed, rubbing his hand up and down Dick’s back before nudging him toward the bathroom. “Shower time. You smell like a water treatment plant.”

Dick smiled from where he had his face buried in Wally’s neck. “Mhm, it’s a new cologne I’m trying out.”

“Yeah, what’s it called?”

“Eau de Gotham.”

In spite of the smell, Wally pressed his face into Dick’s hair and chuckled. “Shower.”

Stealing one more kiss, Dick finally complied, heading down the short hallway into the bathroom. He was a little slow moving still, no doubt sore. It’d be worse tomorrow. Wally was already planning on calling in to work. Star Labs was already pretty understanding with time off and sick days, but once this hit the news in the morning, he had no doubt they wouldn’t have a problem with it.

The sound of the shower turning on from the bathroom filled the apartment. Dick didn’t bother shutting the door, and slowly a light flow of steam began to spill from the opening. “Babe,” Wally called toward the bathroom after he’d hung up both their coats at the front door. “Don’t turn it on too hot just ye-”

“Sorry, can’t hear you!” Dick shouted back over the stream.

Wally rolled his eyes. “Di-”

“I know, I know!”

Wally thought he might have heard the creak of the nob turning, but the steam was still spilling out the open bathroom door. Regardless, he left it alone. Standing in the kitchen, a little lost for a moment as he recalled the last time he’d stood in that same spot, getting the call from the GCPD. He glanced to the fridge. He’d have been half tempted to make them both something to eat, but honestly he was just too tired. Dick had already fallen asleep on the ride back, and Wally’d had to gently shake him awake in the garage to coax him up to the apartment. Opting instead to grab a few nutrient bars from the cupboard, he then headed into the bedroom to change into his pajamas. He only threw on a pair of jersey shorts before climbing under the covers, waiting for Dick to finish up.

In the mean time, he figured that things had slowed down enough to deal with the aftermath. He took out his phone and leaned back against the pillows, typing out a mass text to send to family and friends. It was the middle of the night, and he doubted that most people (excluding maybe his nocturnal in-laws but they might have been otherwise preoccupied) would be awake at this hour. Still, he’d rather hear it from him than other sources.

_Hey everyone._

_Just in case any of you have seen it on the news already, Dick took a fall of Westward Bridge tonight trying to help a teenager on the edge. Dick’s alright. We’re both home, and the kid is safe. Gonna be taking it easy for a few days. - WW_

He typed and retyped the message about five times before he was satisfied. He left out Riley’s name, knowing it would be kept out of the press to protect her identity as a minor. It wasn’t a detail anyone else needed, in any case. Wally had just sent the text out and set his phone on the night stand when the sound of the hair dryer shut off from the bathroom - Wally hadn’t even heard it turn on. Moments later, Dick was walking out into the bedroom. “Alright, c’mere,” Wally already had his arms out, waiting for his partner, when Dick crashed down onto the mattress with a groan.

Dick crawled up the bed and fell heavily into Wally’s arms. Wally shifted down on the bed, reaching out to shut off the bedside lamp before pulling the covers up over them. Normally, Wally couldn’t stand being hot while he was sleeping, which usually worked out with Dick hogging the blankets - tonight, he’d make an exception. Dick was only in his boxers, throwing a leg around Wally’s and clinging as close as possible to him. He was shivering, more violent now than he had been when Wally had first seen him in the back of the ambulance. The skin to skin contact was almost shocking.

“Jesus, babe,” Wally sighed as he rubbed his hand up and down Dick’s bicep, “you’re still freezing.” He could almost feel the heat from the shower evaporating off his skin.

Dick only hummed in acknowledgment, still adjusting to get as much contact as possible. When at last he did settle down, he was still quiet. Wally was entirely content to just lie there an hold him, warming him up as much as he could, but after a while the silence became unnerving. Dick wasn’t asleep yet. His eyes weren’t even closed. He was just staring at the spot on the wall where the veiled moonlight was casting a pale blue silhouette of the window. Wally reached up and threaded his fingers through Dick’s hair. “Hey,” he whispered. “Talk to me, Dick.”

Oh, how far they’d come. It was a funny little thought. He and Dick weren’t always perfect about things like this - talking through their demons, sharing the burden on their shoulders. Sometimes they got frustrated, with themselves or with each other. Sometimes they argued, and snapped, and slept on the couch just to get some space. But sometimes... sometimes they got it right. Wally liked to think that when it came down to it, when it really mattered, they got it right.

Dick turned his face in against Wally’s chest for a moment, before rolling onto his side so he could see him. “Just hit a little close to home,” he finally spoke.

“I know...” Wally said, continuing to play with Dick’s hair. The following silence, however, suggested that maybe Wally didn’t know just how close. He frowned, looking down at Dick and tilting his head to get a better look at him.

“When I was up there, talking Riley down...” Dick began slowly. “Like I said before, she wouldn’t listen until she realized that I really did understand what she was feeling. I just started talking about you and me. It was the only thing I could talk about so easily. It got her to engage with me, and... when I told her about you and your parents, something just clicked. She’d tried coming out to her Dad and Step-Mom tonight, and when it didn’t go well... she ran.”

_Ah_. Wally stiffened slightly, holding Dick a little tighter. “Too close to home,” he murmured to delayed agreement.

“Yeah,” Dick sighed as he turned his gaze up to the ceiling. “Back then... either of us could have been her, Wally. You could have...”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Wally quickly hushed that train of thought. “Don’t torture yourself like that. What matters is that you were there for her tonight.”

Dick nodded, silent for another while as he turned his thoughts over in his head. “I really do think her parents will change. It might not happen right away, but after what I saw from them tonight... she’ll be okay. But even once is too much. One kid is too many.”

There was a lot that Wally could have said. He thought back to that rainy March afternoon just a year ago, the last time this burden had weighed so heavily on Dick’s mind. He thought about that night, huddled up in a blanket fort in their living room. He thought about that night years and years ago, red-eyed and broken, still hearing his father’s screams ringing in his ears, as he crawled under the blankets and fairy lights in his boyfriend’s bedroom. Wally remembered that choking feeling of abandonment and rejection so tight around his throat that night he’d almost not called Dick. That kind of loneliness was so overwhelming. He couldn’t bare to think about what might have happened if he didn’t have Dick in his life, but the dark little thought had crept into the recess of his mind once or twice over the years.

Wally knew that things were better now than they were back then, so much so that he forgot just how different the world was sometimes. It was so easy to forget the nights he’d see commercials begging for same-sex marriage rights on TV, barely hearing the first minute before his parents would scoff and change the channel. It was, admittedly, less easy to forget the commercials advocating against it, the ones he’d hear all the way through without comment.

Wally knew that things were better. But the reminder that it wasn’t always enough was like a skipping record at this point. It was repetitive. Exhausted. Still, they kept moving forward.

“Are you going to visit Riley in the hospital?” Wally asked when the silence dragged on for too long.

Dick hesitated. “No,” he said. “I don’t want to be a reminder of the worst night of her life when she’s trying to recover. Maybe some day, but not yet. She needs some space.”

Wally nodded. Tugging his arm around Dick, he pulled him flush against his side again, still feeling the light tremors from the cold through his partner’s body. “So... the hot chocolate...”

Dick smiled, pressing his face against Wally’s shoulder. “Again, it was just the first thing that came to mind, because I remembered the night you came to the Manor after... everything. I told her if she came off the Bridge with me, we’d get some hot chocolate. I wanted to make sure I kept that promise.”

“Ultimate cure-all,” Wally echoed his words from earlier that night, feeling the meaning of them change on his tongue. Outside, the wind continued to rattle on through the city streets, the snow falling heavier and heavier. Wally dipped is head down to coax his partner’s lips into a kiss. “I love you, Dick.”

“I love you too, Wally,” Dick muttered against his lips. Pulling away just enough to look him in the eyes, Dick smiled, eyes glistening. “And I’m so glad you’re here...”

Those words meant so much more past a dangerous time in Wally’s life and they both knew it. Wally pressed his lips against Dick’s forehead, lingering there for a long moment, before Dick finally relaxed. It didn’t take more than a minute for his breathing to even out. Wally, however, wasn’t so quick to fall asleep. He just kept holding onto Dick, staring out the window at the white noise of the growing blizzard. It was a close call in so many ways that night. Close calls were nothing new to them, not in their line of work. It was all water under the bridge, but still... this one would stick with them both, he knew.  
  
What mattered right now was Dick was here with him, safe, dry, and warm. Resting his head against his fiancé’s, Wally soon after drifted off.

**Author's Note:**

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